


Last Minute Calibrations

by musicquartz



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26281519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicquartz/pseuds/musicquartz
Summary: Jane Shepard has been ripped back to life by Cerberus in order to defeat the Collectors, an impending Reaper threat harvesting the bodies of humans in colonies throughout the galaxy. There is no rest, not even in death, but perhaps the arms of her turian second in command can soothe the harsh blows of reality. Her feelings are unfamiliar and her logic fights her at every turn, but she can't help the way her heart jumps even when he only speaks her name.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Dossier: Archangel

**Author's Note:**

> I made a half-joking post on tumblr about writing this fic and you all were so encouraging and excited that I can't help but write it. I hope you all enjoy this first chapter and I will happily accept constructive criticism! This is more or less my second fic, but I technically never finished writing my first one,,,

Shepard regarded her facial scars in the mirror and sighed. Being back aboard the Normandy was a shell-shock to say the least; the last thing she’d seen other than the inky blackness of space was the Normandy SR1 being torn apart just above the upper atmosphere of the planet she apparently crash landed herself on.   
Cerberus had done what they can, despite everything. The Normandy was as stealthy and combat ready as ever, but the touch of Alliance military had vanished. To her, it was like drifting weightless in a dream. Succumbing to suffocation just as she began to spin into the planet’s atmosphere and then waking up on a cold metal table had the same affect as jerking awake from a nightmare. Even now, days later, as she stared at her stringy hair and dark eye circles, she stomped her feet just to feel the ache of reality. She imagined, somewhat ironically, that she may feel a bit more alive with bullets whizzing by her ears.   
Miranda and Jacob’s combined bluntness was like being splashed with cold water. Jacob was a new face, but his military habits brought an unexpected familiarity that both comforted and irritated Shepard. Shepard mused on how Miranda was just irritating, plain and simple, as she pulled on her boots. Miranda had made herself comfortable in a large office in the CIC and while Shepard could both respect and admire a capable woman, Miranda tended to tread on her toes just a bit too often.   
Shepard rubbed a wet towel behind her ears and on the back of her neck, purposefully looking away from the grime. They were docked on Omega, so it wasn’t like she had a reason to waste water and fully shower yet. The station was a testament to the adaptability and perseverance of the galaxy’s species. What started off as a simple mining colony for element zero flourished into a bustling hub for trade and travel. Although, Shepard thought as she made her way towards the elevator, it gave off more of a Gotham City vibe than anything else.   
The elevator opened on the floor of the CIC and Shepard was instantly greeted with the sound of Joker’s bickering. The Artificial Intelligence that had him so worked up was installed by Cerberus as part of the Normandy’s upgraded navigation and defense systems. The AI had suggested they call it “EDI”, but Joker found other names that he considered much more creative.   
The sudden wave of emotion from hearing Joker’s echoed voice from the ship’s bow made Shepard put a hand against the wall to brace herself. He had greeted her like nothing had happened, and for that she was grateful, but she still couldn’t shake the look in his eyes when they both realized Shepard wasn’t going to make it. Shepard took a deep breath and began striding towards the front of the ship, waving a silent greeting to Yeoman Chambers as she did. Everyone else had two years to grieve, but not a week had passed since Shepard had seen his face pressed against the glass of an escape hatch. She could only hope that everyone had made it out alive.   
The Illusive Man had given her information on her entire crew. Tali, Liara, Kaiden, and Wrex were all fine, she assumed. They had picked up and set their flag down in another corner of the galaxy to busy themselves against whatever coming threat may land. It only made sense that Tali would return to the fleet and Kaiden to the Alliance. He hated Cerberus almost more than anything and Shepard, still fighting a churning pit in her stomach whenever she looked at the Cerberus symbols on the walls, hated them just as much until very, very recently.   
Garrus Vakarian was a name on the forefront of her mind. The Illusive Man had all but shrugged his shoulders at the name. Survived the evacuation, he claimed, and vanished into smoke. Shepard was worried about where he had ended up; he’d told her before that his relationship with his father on Palaven would be rocky since his departure from C-Sec. Just that alone eliminates him from being on his home planet or the Citadel. She briefly hoped that she might have seen him on Omega, but during Mordin’s recruitment she saw only turians belonging to Omega’s many gangs. She sighed, leaning her shoulder against the wide doorway to the cockpit. Maybe she would have better luck on Ilium, she thought, but the image of the planet’s sprawling, endless cities did little to quell her worries.   
“How’s it going up here, Joker?” Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow as Joker spun his chair around.   
“How do you think its going? I have a glorified calculator breathing down my neck on how I set the color preferences on my damn dashboard!” He leaned forward, pointing at the hologram of EDI’s VI display.  
“I only suggested a shift in your accessibility settings, Mr. Moreau. My records indicate that you are deuteranomalous and would benefit from a red-green hue adjustment,” she quipped, her display shimmering.   
Joker threw his hands up in defeat and looked at Shepard pointedly.   
“Hey, don’t look at me. Play nice with the AI, she’s got the Normandy purring and using less eezo while we’re docked. Besides,” Shepard leaned close and mockingly put a hand up to block her mouth from EDI’s VI display, “I’m sure she has a mute button somewhere.”  
He grinned, wagging a finger at Shepard as he turned back around to mess with the cockpit’s settings, “Don’t tempt me with a good time, Commander!”  
Shepard smiled and turned towards the airlock to leave, pulling up her Omni-tool as she did. The Illusive Man had sent her several dossiers on potential crewmates for the Normandy’s Collector missions. Mordin’s description hardly did the eccentric scientist justice; as soon as he had finished dragging cases of lab equipment and unfinished experiments onto the Normandy, he’d gotten to work tinkering on gods knew what. All of this while mumbling and singing to himself in varying tones.   
Her next dossier was on a subject known as “Archangel”, noted only as a sniping merc commander making enemies of the numerous gangs on Omega. People on Omega made a lot of enemies, but few souls would be brave or foolish enough to hunt for heads so openly on the mining station. Aria had already given her everything she knew on Archangel when Shepard had gone to ask after Mordin, so she made a beeline for Afterlife once she made it out of the Normandy’s airlock. She sent a quick message to Jacob and Mordin asking them to meet her at the shuttle cabs in a few minutes. If the Eclipse, Blood Pack, and Blue Suns were working together, she suspected they were in for a hell of a firefight.   
After registering as a free-lance mercenary through the Blue Suns and all but lecturing a poor drunk kid who wanted to bet his life on a half-broken pistol, she hopped into the passenger side of the shuttle Mordin and Jacob were in. Jacob looked extremely uncomfortable next to the salarian and Shepard opened her mouth to make a petty comment about Cerberus xenophobia, but she noticed Mordin’s constant tapping and muttering first.   
“No. Wouldn’t work. Constant error output of 0.05 percent. Introduces variable. Rash. Possible nosebleeds. Maybe more natural input? Rely more on biological immunities?” He continued puttering away, seeming to count on his fingers and draw diagrams in the air, shaking his head occasionally. Shepard smiled encouragingly at Jacob, but he only nodded stoically back. She cleared her throat and straightened herself in her seat, staring ahead. At this point, it was enough to make her miss Wrex’s constant loud mouth.  
The gangs’ headquarters was a blur of constant motion when they landed, full of vorcha rushing around shouting encouragement to newly arriving mercs (although their version of encouragement made a lot of the temporary recruits pale and look sick) and various species of generals, lieutenants, and soldiers trying to organize teams to move out. Many bodies lay scattered on the ground wounded, dead, and dying.   
“They must really hate this guy to be throwing so many lives at him,” Jacob commented quietly, side-stepping a sprinting Blue Suns turian.   
“So I’ve heard,” Shepard responded, moving forward. “We need to find Sergeant Cathka if we want to find Archangel. Supposedly, he’s organizing the main front.”   
On their way through the various corridors and connecting rooms of the makeshift headquarters, Mordin stopped at a doorway in curiosity and stepped inside. He quickly poked his head back out and called Shepard back.  
“Commander. Even the odds?” he suggests, waving her back. A looming inactive YMIR heavy mech shone dully in the sparse lighting. Shepard’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, double-checking that there were no guards posted nearby for the machine. She signaled to Jacob to stand watch and bent towards the mech to begin reprogramming its targeting systems. She was no tech wizard, but anyone could pry open a hatch and cross some wires. Mordin nodded in approval, looking over her shoulder.  
“What did you do to it?” Jacob whispered as they continued towards the sound of gunfire.  
“Nothing crazy,” she replied, “but I disabled the targeting system. It will fire at anything that moves now.”  
“Is that better?”  
“Undoubtedly,” Mordin chirped, “Disabled targeting. Lower rate of fire. Doesn’t focus on single target. More of a spray effect. Target the jittery ones.” At that, he motioned at a vorcha scratching itself.   
Jacob grunted in response and pointed at a batarian struggling with a damaged gunship, “Is that our sergeant?”  
Shepard nodded, “Stay here, I’ll speak with him. Be ready to move quickly, I’m sure he’ll send us across that bridge ASAP.”  
As Shepard made her way to the batarian, single shots whipped across the bridge. Every single one landed in the head or chest of one of the freelancers, sending them tumbling to the ground. She squinted across the bridge and saw an armored figure duck down in an opposite building but couldn’t make anything else out.   
Her interaction with the sergeant was brief; even as he lay under the gunship trying to make last minute repairs, orders rolled in to begin the final charge on the building where Archangel was laying low. Shepard quickly glanced between a welding tool and the batarian’s exposed back but decided there wasn’t time for another sabotage.   
“Let’s move,” she said, motioning for Mordin and Jacob to flank her as they jumped the barricades onto the bridge.   
Shepard looked up at Archangel briefly as he popped up and down to take pot shots at the approaching freelancers. His armor looked increasingly familiar, but she could never get a long enough look before he trained his gun and she dove behind cover. Once they were across the bridge, Shepard stood straight and observed the carnage that Archangel had wrought. He was still shooting, picking them off one at a time, but now showed no interest in the three right below his balcony. Shepard raised her gun towards the freelancers and gave her crew the permission to fire they had been waiting on.   
Within minutes, the storming fleet had been completely obliterated, bodies littering the bridge and the high points of the barricades. Shepard, Mordin, and Jacob turned and pounded up the stairs two at a time, eager to reach Archangel before the gangs decided to send another wave.   
“Carefully upon approach, he may not recognize us as friendlies,” Shepard advised, opening the final door to the balcony where Archangel was attempting to make his final stand. They walked in carefully, guns ready but lowered, watching Archangel’s back as he fired two more shots across the way.   
As they approached, Shepard felt that familiar crawl in her stomach that she’d be getting ever since she woke up. Some things looked so familiar, felt so recent, but some nostalgic ache kept confusing her perspective of time. Archangel’s armor was sleek from the waist down, but flared dramatically at the shoulders, rising in a crest that completely protected the wearer’s neck.   
"Archangel?" she asked. Archangel turned, twisting his helmet off as he did so.   
Shepard gasped quietly, holstering her gun, “Wait-.”  
“Shepard,” he said, propping his foot against a low table as he leaned back at his sniper’s perch. His voice was steady, but his eyes shown bright and confused. “I thought you were dead.”  
“Garrus,” she whispered. 


	2. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to evacuate due to a hurricane, so this chapter is short. I promise I will try to upload more soon!

“Shepard,” he said, looking at her in disbelief, “I thought you were dead.”

Her heart jumped, seeing him. Every terrified thought she’d had of him laying in a ditch or recruited with some no name group that frequently pressured people on the docks of the Citadel into half-witted mining operations. Seeing him now, even with a few new scars, took a weight off Shepard’s shoulders.

She shook her head to clear her mind and came back with a smile, spreading her arms in greeting. “Garrus! What are you doing here?”

“You know me, Shepard,” he replied, “Just keeping my skills sharp with a little bit of target practice.”

As much as he may have been trying to hide it, Shepard could hear the fatigue in his voice. He had sat proud when he greeted her, but the longer he stayed in one position the more he slowly slouched and the longer his blinks were. There was no telling how long he’d been awake with the gangs throwing so much at him or how many stims he’d shot into his veins.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Been better. But it sure is good to see you again, Shepard.” He quickly glanced at Mordin and Jacob before continuing, “Taking out these mercs has been hard work. Especially on my own.”

“Why are you on Omega? And how have you managed to piss off every major gang in the Terminus system?” Shepard crossed her arms, knowing Garrus would give her a half-assed answer while Jacob stood near. She could tell from the way he kept glancing at the Cerberus soldier over her shoulder that his distrust blossomed as soon as he recognized the Cerberus uniform. Some of that distrust was aimed her way as well, and as much as it made her chest ache to know her best friend was wary of her, she knew it was well-placed. Cerberus wasn’t worth the dirt under her nails.

“I got sick of the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel. Figured I could do more good here,” he claimed. “And it wasn’t easy. I had to _really_ work at it.”

Garrus stood and repositioned his grip on his rifle, throwing Shepard one of his lazy grins. Or about as well as a turian could grin, as his mandibles delicately drew themselves ever so slightly back and down.

Shepard moved towards the shallow balcony where Garrus had decided to make his final stand. “Something tells me that getting out won’t be as easy as getting in.”

“By now, they’ll have realized their infiltration team failed,” he agreed, holding his weapon out to Shepard. “Take a look. Looks like Eclipse scouts coming in.”

Shepard took the sniper carefully, admiring the sheer size of it. Only a turian could wield a gun like this comfortably. She stretched her finger tentatively toward the trigger and the front of the gun dipped and swayed. It was heavy, a stark contrast to the submachine gun on her waist. She stopped fooling around with it and focused her view on the bridge.

“That bridge has kept me alive,” he said. “Funneling all of those witless idiots into scope.” Garrus laid out his plan for escape as Shepard peered into the sniper’s scope. LOKI mechs rounded the corner and began chittering at each other, communicating orders from a transmission server.

“They don’t look like scouts to me,” Shepard said, lowering the sniper’s scope. Garrus looked again and cursed, striding back into the main room. 

“Looks like we’ll need to do things your way, Shepard.” 

“And in what way are you referring to?” she asked, watching more and more Eclipse mercs begin crowding the bridge. 

“Loud,” he purred, “Do this the way you do best.” 

Shepard nodded, grinning. As much as she tried to remain professional, she couldn’t help the excitement swelling in her chest. Every fire fight with Garrus had been a dance. Memories of diving behind cover and throwing a wave of biotics towards the geth as he would seem to materialize behind her and double-tap bullets into their visual display rushed back. Killing was never an art, she knew better than to romanticize the horror of war, but damn if Garrus didn’t make it easy. 

Shepard nodded at Jacob, “You’re with me. Mordin, stay here and give Garrus some support on his six. We’ll make quick work of this.” 

Wordlessly, they moved. Eclipse mercs were already storming the front entrance and maneuvering around the building to try and close them off from every angle. Now that she was boots on the ground once again, Shepard’s head had a chance to catch up with her heart. The initially elation of seeing Garrus alive and well, marching through Omega as the vigilante Archangel had worn off. Something happened here, she knew, seeing the bodies in the main room on the ground floor. 

They were positioned respectfully, covered head-to-toe with white tarp that was tacked down to prevent any exposure. They couldn’t have been there long. And Garrus, she knew, wouldn’t have stayed here without a good reason. The mercs across the bridge were settled deep, showing days of planning and organization before even the first attacks on his location. He had plenty of time to escape before they even had the LOKI or YMIR mechs up and running. 

_So,_ she thought, vaulting over a blockade, _why didn’t he?_


End file.
